"The past is always tense, the future perfect."
~Zadie Smith
Shawn laughed as his son stumbled around, calling out the Italian words, "Il campione di papà."
Which meant 'Dad's champion', it was a phrase Shawn had been calling his little boy from birth.
Sure he didn't say the words quite right, he wasn't even two yet.
"Ehi ragazzo, stai per cadere. Torna qui." Shawn spoke Italian to his children, mainly because he wanted them to be fluent in it like he was.
'Hey boy, you're going to fall. Come back here.' Shawn's little boy turned to him, smiling a toothy smile.
"Papà!" Shawn's daughter cheered, running from the bottom of the stairs all the way to him.
He was seated on the floor with his son staggering and falling over in front of him, the both of them just having some father and son time.
"Principessa." Shawn opened his arms for her to run into, but his eyes stayed on the woman behind her.
"Ace." He smiled up at his wife, Grace Stryker.
"Morning Shawn." Grace pecked his lips and sat beside him, watching their children play.
Sure Shawn was adamant that he didn't want children, but the mosquito beside him had given him two.
He had married her in the first month of the year, getting their first child nine months later.
Kiara was the oldest of his two children, born on the tenth of October.
She was four months away from turning four, and absolutely beautiful.
Black curly hair, warm beige skin and beautiful chestnut brown eyes.
She's a year and eleven months older than her little brother, who was no different from her, same hair, same skin tone and same colour eyes.
His boy was three months away from turning two, he couldn't quite walk but he said a few words here and there.
They named him after Shawn's dear best friend, Kevin.
Everyone adored the name, Kristen, Armon and especially Tiffany.
Tiff and Ken got married a few years before Shawn and Grace got married.
Ken was twenty one years of age when he got married to Tiff who's a whole year older.
They had one kid, a boy named Julian.
He has green eyes and black her, a real seven year old heart breaker.
Ken's father lived a leisurely life in prison, for five years before being released for good behaviour.
Riley still took over the family Yakuza, because Yoshida decided to leave back to Japan to lead the main Yakuza back there.
He hadn't been present for his son's wedding, or his grandson's birth.
Ken didn't really mind, his mother was there for it all and that was enough.
Ryan surprisingly got married to Kimberly. What was surprising about it was that he had broken things off between them back in college, saying they weren't meant for each other.
Kristen and Armon had also found themselves beautiful women to love, becoming husbands and fathers too.
They were all reaching their early thirties, but they still couldn't believe that they were in the future they had- for so long- dreamt about.
"Liz said she'd be coming over later today. She sounded so worried and sad, I think she was even crying." Grace whispered in Shawn's ear, hoping that her children didn't hear her tone.
Her kids were very sensitive when it came to their mother's emotions, too intune with their mother.
If she felt sad, they would feel that way too and cry.
She was too open with her emotions and they were too empathetic, especially her little boy Kevin.
"She'll be fine, we'll make sure of it." He kissed her forehead and stood, heading over to the kitchen.
"Papà!" Kiara followed her dad everywhere, separate her from him and she'd throw a tantrum.
"Hey love." He picked her up and placed her on his hip, looking through the fridge for his apple juice.
That was the only juice he drank, aside from the occasional grape juice that his wife loves to drink.
Other than that, wine was his go to- just not around his children of course.
"Ace, the apple juice is finished!" He called out to his wife, closing the fridge and sauntering back into the living room area.
"I'll stop by the store on my way to Andre's place." She bounced Kevin on her lap, the boy laughing and reaching for his mother's face.
"You're taking Kevin with?" Shawn stood across from her, putting his little girl back on her little feet.
She scurried away to play with her toys, somewhere not too far from her parents.
"No, my mom and dad want to see the kids." Shawn groaned, for two separate reasons.
One being, he didn't quite like her mom and dad. They still had a problem with how things played out back when he and Grace were young and stupid, and they tried on several occasions to get Grace to change her mind about marrying him.
The second reason being that Kevin wasn't exactly fully independent of his mother, he needed her around him.
Kevin loved being around his father, but being away from his mother for too long made him upset.
"Kevin-" Shawn frowned, already thinking about how difficult that evening was going to be.
"Or maybe I should just invite Darius and Andre over." She concluded, bringing a smile to her husband's face.
"Now you're thinking like a Stryker." He winked and sat across from her, making faces to his son who stared at him.
"I guess I'll have to make dinner, for seven." Grace sighed and rested her head against the couch behind her.
She wondered why they even got a couch, that couch was still brand new because they hardly ever sat on it.
The whole family loved sitting on the floor because, according to Shawn, couches were uncomfortable.
"Or we can just order Chinese food, or Indian. What do your parents prefer?" Shawn asked as he fiddled with his son's small chubby hands.
"We'll order Chinese." Grace nodded, smiling at the ugly- but hot- faces Shawn was making.
"I tuoi denti da latte possono masticare il cinese?" Shawn asked his son, poking his nose.
'Can your milk teeth chew Chinese?' to which his son just laughed at, not exactly knowing what his father was saying.
Grace didn't, couldn't, understand Italian.
He had tried to teach her for twelve years, but the black rose still couldn't understand a word.
The most she understood was Principessa which meant princess, and il campione di papà which meant dad's champion.
"What the hell are you saying to my child?" She would constantly tease that he was cursing them, that, because she didn't understand, everything he said was bad.
It annoyed the hell out of him, but he couldn't take it to heart.
"Relax woman." He chuckled as she rubbed his face, pulling on his hair and lips.
Their baby laughed and wanted to play with them, joining his mother in pulling his dad's hair and lips.
"Madre, Padre!" Kiara skipped over to them, holding her teddy close to her chest.
"I hate that she doesn't know how to speak English." Grace frowned and stopped pulling on Shawn's hair, although Kevin continued in that endeavour.
"She'll learn, eventually." Shawn shrugged with a grin on his face, proud that his daughter only spoke Italian.
Due to how much time he spent with her, and the fact that he only spoke Italian to his children, she had picked up on the language faster than English.
"Raccontare una storia." The little girl beamed, smiling a pearly white smile.
"What are you saying to me?" Grace held her child's face between her hands, leaning her face closer to her baby's face then kissing her nose.
"She's asking us to tell her a story." Shawn smiled as his daughter crawled away from her mother, instead opting to sit between her father's legs.
"Oh, well then, let me tell you a more modern Romeo and Juliet story." Grace smiled and lifted Kevin up, putting him on his butt instead of being on his tummy.
Although Kiara couldn't quite speak English, she understood most of what her parents said to her.
She understood it just as much as she understood Italian, she just couldn't verbalize the English words at the moment.
"You're really going to tell our three year old the story we wrote in twelfth grade for our English assignment?" Shawn arched his eyebrow at Grace.
"No, I'm going to tell her our story." She said smugly, as though that wasn't the story they wrote for their English assignment.
They had written what had happened to them, their very own Romeo and Juliet story.
But, despite starting early with the assignment, they had handed it in late- still scoring an A+ nonetheless.
"Okay, go on." And she did, she told their story and her baby girl was awestruck.
She didn't understand the degree of what her mother was telling her, she just heard the word 'love' and that was enough for her.
She didn't understand just how deep the story was, the fundamental themes that went into their lives.
She didn't understand that, at a point in his life, her father didn't exist even while being alive.
She didn't understand that he was once the unknown, the kind that people usually stayed away from.
For a child to understand that their parents were once strangers, stuck together by fate.
She couldn't understand that her mother was once shy around her father, that her father was fond of her even though they weren't exactly friends.
That they had been each other's first kiss, though nausea hit right after.
She couldn't understand that being separated made them feel as though they were in pieces, but being together was bittersweet.
She could never understand the hate that was once the foundation of her family, that there were once brutal words shared between the two families.
She didn't understand that there was once no 'us', and her mother was once oblivious to the obvious.
She heard the word 'love', but she didn't understand the pain that went behind it.
And, unlike in most fairytales, her mother had been the one to save her father.
Her father's heart was once cursed, a curse shared between two.
That there were things they had to take and things they had to know, all to make sure their children didn't have to worry.
All to come to this future that they had worked so hard to acquire, that tears and blood had gone into.
A perfect future.
"Then they got married and had two beautiful children who they named Kiara and Kevin." Grace finished, grinning with happy tears coating her obsidian eyes.
"Non piangere, Mi piace la storia." Kiara smiled and crawled around her brother, kneeling and wiping her mother's tears away.
"What is she saying to me?" Grace laughed, helping her child wipe away the tears.
"Don't cry, she likes the story." Shawn smiled, moving to sit beside Grace.
"Baby, you better learn English quick." Grace peppered her girl's face with kisses, making the little girl giggle and scrunch her face.
"English!" Kiara cheered happily, clasping her mother's face between her little hands.
"The only English word she can say is English?" Grace chuckled, holding Kiara's hands against her cheeks.
"Nah, she can say Ace too." Shawn rested his head against Grace's, pulling his son back as the boy began to crawl away.
"Shawn?" Grace leaned against him, her eyes closed.
"Yeah?" He draped an arm over her shoulders, bringing her closer to him.
"I didn't kill our children." Shawn laughed at her statement, his face tinting pink like it did everytime he wholeheartedly laughed.
"I didn't want kids though." He chuckled, looking up at the ceiling.
"Well, you have two." She turned her body so she was fully facing Shawn, her head resting on his collar bone.
"And I thank you for blessing me with two little Stryker babies." He kissed her forehead, turning his body towards her.
"You are so welcome Mr Stryker." She grinned happily.
"I knew you wanted my babies Mrs stryker." Shawn smirked then kissed her, having her kiss back.
Just then, a knock was heard which interrupted Shawn and Grace's moment.
Grace got up and skipped to the door, opening it to find her little sister on the other side.
"Liz!" Grace cheered, bringing her little sister into a warm embrace.
The two walked into the house, smiling and giggling like sisters should.
"Shawnie!" Liz cheered as Shawn stood, hugging him tightly.
"Still your favourite human huh?" Shawn smirked, being proud in the fact that he was someone's number one.
"Second favourite, Obadiah took your place. Remember?" Grace pointed out, just to burst Shawn's bubble.
"Third favourite, my baby took Obadiah's place." Liz blurted out casually, her words almost going over their heads.
"Wait what?" Grace's eyes widened, not believing her ears.
"I may or may not be pregnant." Liz grinned sheepishly, deep down feeling highly embarrassed.
She didn't even have the guts to tell her parents, telling Grace and Shawn was hard enough.
Grace and Shawn just stared at her for a while longer, waiting for her to blurt out 'Just kidding'.
It never came, because, as much as she wished it weren't so, she was pregnant at the young age of seventeen.
Tears came flooding down her cheeks, prompting Shawn to pull her into an embrace.
From her tears, Shawn could tell that she had no idea who the father was.
Maybe the future wasn't as perfect after all.
~~THE END~~